THE PRESTIGE

Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Buena Vista Pictures
Grade: C+
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Written By: Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett
Johansson, David Bowie, Andy Serkis
Screened at: AMC, NYC, 10/16/06
Opens: October 20, 2006.

There's a reason that capitalism has engulfed most of the
prosperous world. Adam Smith and company came to the
brilliant conclusion that human beings are infinitely competitive.
Those who feel most alive from the neck up compete in spelling
bees, geography quizzes, chess matches, crossworld puzzle
contests, and, ultimately, for Nobels and Pulizers. Those most
alive from the neck down fight on the football fields and on the
grounds of war. Christopher Nolan's men are of the former
group, each competing to be considered the best magician in
London and, thereby, in England–at the turn of the 20th Century
when Thomas Edison began to wow the developed world. As
magical as electricity must have seemed then, it was not the
kind of invention that people would line up in expensive theater
seats to see, which has something to do with the fact that
Edison was probably not a showman. People did pay for
theater seats in London to see magic shows, one involving two
apprentice magicians who were partners who shilled for the
master by acting as "volunteers" from the audience. One was
Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman), a charismatic fellow whose
magnetism would later put over his acts. The other, Alfred
Borden (Christian Bale sporting an effective Cockney accent),
had better tricks but would not be as great as a showman. At
first the two are partners, working together to put Robert's wife
Julia (Piper Perabo) into a tank of water where Houdini-like she
would release herself from the knots tied by "volunteers." When
Julia drowns, having been unable to free herself from a more
complicated knot, Robert blames Alfred. The two split up,
Robert determined to gain vengeance against Aflred, while
Alfred, for his part, is pleased to retaliate.

When Robert sees how happy Alfred is with his own wife, Sarah
(Rebecca Hall), he, like the departed Julia, is fit to be tied.
Robert wows the crowds, while Alfred languishes. Yet Robert
admires Alfred's one trip called "The Transported Man," in which
the magician opens a door on stage left, tosses a hat, and
catches it all the way over on stage right. Robert sends his
assistant and lover Olivia (Scarlett Johannson) as a mole to
Alfred to discover the secret, but moles have a way of becoming
double agents, making Robert all the more furious at Alfred.
Ultimately, in a story (penned by the director and Jonathan
Nolan from Christopher Priest's novel) that involves an
American inventor of an unusual machine, Tesla (David Bowie)
and Alfred's mentor, Cutter (Michael Caine), Alfred is charged
with the murder of his rival, Robert.

They say that magic is all done with mirrors. While mirrors are
not literally used by the rivals, an element of supernaturalism
comes to the fore much as it did in "The Illusionist," but amid all
the cleverness and sleights of hand, Christopher Nolan forgot
about human emotions, at least those involving more depth than
furious desires for revenge. In performing the ultimate trick,
"The Transported Man," Nolan does not quite show his hand,
leaving some in the audience baffled as to how the trick is done
(I found out by asking a colleague smarter than I) and why,
exactly, one fellow goes to the gallows without much of a fuss.
In Greek tragedies, the big payoff would be called a Deus ex
machina, a God-from-the-machine–which is almost literally true
here, in that we are introduced to a machine that performs a
kind of heaven-inspired magic which has no foreshadowing.
The constant flash-forwards add more confusing ingredients to
the magic brew.

"The Prestige" is released on the heels of the far better film
about magic, "The Ilusionist," Neil Burger's stunning historical
thriller about rivals who form 2/3 of a romantic triangle involving
the Crown Prince of Austria–and taking place in that country at
about the same time as "The Prestige" unfolds in London.

Wally Pfister, who was Nolan's lenser for "Batman Begins,"
turns in pleasing, highly proficient shots of Nathan Crowley's
period production design, but the picture on the whole is bereft
of–what did we say in the beginning?–of something to feel
below the neck.

Rated PG-13. 130 minutes 2006 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online